Behavioural and prefrontal and parietal functional and structural MRI changes associated with working memory training

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The human brain has the capacity to change and modify with experience. Experience, including cognitive training, causes changes in the brain and these brain changes can be measured using behavioural measures (e.g., performance on cognitive tasks) and using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The laboratory training literature on working memory (i.e., ability to maintain and manipulate information) demonstrates that training can lead to improvement on non-practiced tasks, including related domains (e.g., response inhibition) and fluid intelligence (i.e., ability to reason and solve novel problems). Training on working memory may generalize to tasks and processes not specifically practiced as working memory is associated with the broader construct of intelligence. In this research program we will investigate how working memory performance, non-trained cognitive abilities, fluid intelligence, and prefrontal and parietal cortical regions change as a result of working memory training and whether these changes are maintained in the short-term as measured by behaviour and functional and structural MRI. We hypothesize that working memory training improves cognitive performance and fluid intelligence and increases prefrontal and parietal grey matter function and structure. Additionally, we hypothesize that the behavioural and brain gains made through working memory training will be retained in the short-term. The proposed research program has the ability to inform current knowledge about how cognition and the brain change with working memory training and how working memory training may relate to fluid intelligence. If working memory training can reliably influence fluid intelligence and these changes are found to be sustainable, these findings would have a large impact on theories that traditionally view fluid intelligence as relatively fixed.